Good Things by David

My collection of L.E. Smith caramel glass cake stands from the Martha by Mail catalog is finally complete.  It took quite a while to gather each of these pieces, because I didn't have the luxury of buying them from the catalog when it was in business.  A vendor here with a set, a vendor there with one, and then the keen eye of a friend of mine (thank you Daniel!) who thought the cake stand may or may not have been a Martha by Mail piece.  That is how I acquired these cake stands.  This exclusive shade of slag glass was commissioned by Martha Stewart for her catalog business (Martha by Mail) in the late 1990s.  I've written  a detailed post about this collection before.  You can read about it by  clicking here .  The plain round cake stands for the catalog come in four sizes.  The smallest measures 6" in diameter and the largest measures 12" in diameter.  The ones in between measure 8" and 10" in diameter.   I had no idea that t...

You can never go wrong with a chocolate layer cake.  Whether you make one for a birthday or to celebrate someone fantastic in your life, a tall, dark chocolate cake covered in a delicious buttercream is the way to go.  I have yet to find someone who refuses a slice of chocolate cake. Plan ahead: bake and cool the cake layers, and if not icing that day, wrap each layer in plastic wrap and chill until ready to use.  You can freeze the layers for up to one month (thaw overnight in the refrigerator).   For this cake, I used Martha Stewart's Ultimate Chocolate Cake.   Click here for the recipe.   I find that chilled cake layers are key for applying flawless Swiss meringue buttercream.  You can do it on room temperature cakes, but crumbs are more likely to come off if the layers aren't hardened a bit. Swiss meringue buttercream is perhaps one of the easiest buttercreams to make, because the preparation is straightforward and basic.  Egg whites and sugar...

The last of the Valentine's Day cookies for 2020 are undoubtedly sweet.  I narrowed down the hues of the cookies to four colors in order to keep things effortless and straightforward.  This in no way limited the range of designs that I created for the folks here in town.    Take a look!   A rich, deep chocolate brown royal icing always looks very tempting and striking on a cookie, no matter how it's used.  For Valentine hearts, it's a winner.  Add to this a very bright pink and dark red to round out the hues, and of course, a bit of white to lighten the palette.  With these four colors, heart sugar cookies come together in a matter of 1-2 days, depending on the amount of treats that you have to ice. This set of hearts sitting on Wedgwood white bone china and British lustreware demitasse cups are perhaps my favorite of the bunch.  It's all about the dotted border. Using a #2 piping tip, add red and pink dots along the ...

It's not necessary to reinvent the wheel when it comes to making new sugar cookies.  For my first round of Valentine's Day sugar cookies this year, I went with the easiest technique imaginable.  Dots!  Piping royal icing dots is not the hardest thing for anyone of any skill.  What's more, if you want to make quick work of your Valentine's Day cookies don't flood them.  Bake pristine sugar cookies in a range of heart shapes, and then quickly ice them with dots.  Note:  every cookie was decorated with a #2 piping tip. This pink milk glass platter shows the the variety of shapes and designs I am referring to. Here's a sampling of the cookie cutters I ended up using for this project.   If you don't own a set of these French de Buyer heart cookie cutters, I highly recommend them.  I like the range of sizes they come in, the fact that they're deep and made of strong plastic.  Easy to maintain, the cutters get used every si...

Does one say Merry Catsmas or Meowy Christmas?  Whichever way you think kitty pronounces it, it's so easy to make kitty cat gingerbread or sugar cookies for Christmas.  This is exactly what I did for my niece and nephews over the weekend.   For over a decade, I have made it a tradition to have a set of cookies with me as I travel out west to spend Christmas with my family.  I don't like to repeat myself with cookie designs for the niece and nephews, so it's a bit of a challenge coming up with things they've never seen me create.   Kitty cats are beloved pets in our extended family.  Using my Martha by Mail cat cookie cutters and a Wilton snowflake cookie cutter, I quickly iced cookies in a matter of an hour or so.  Nothing fancy.  Nothing difficult. For the kitty cats, I applied two consistencies of white royal icing.  A very stiff icing was used to pipe the scarves on each cat with a #18 open star tip.  Using a flowi...

I was commissioned to make a set of Downton Abbey inspired, tea-themed cookies for a local event in my town.  With a set of cookie cutters in the shapes of a teapot, a teacup, a teabag, a cupcake, a scalloped round and a plaque, I quickly iced cookies worthy of any tea party. These cookies were made with a specific color palette at the request of a friend.  A deep turquoise, a soft pink, a dark lavender and some jet black (not to mention white, of course) is what you will need to make these specific cookie designs.  You may also want to add a bit of gilded touches to your cookies if you want to make them stand out even more. I don't know if Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, would ever have had a reason to own a  black and white bone china teapot, but this one works.  It almost resembles a piece of Wedgwood.  I do know that she probably would never have eaten a frilly cupcake like the ones you see here.  That's OK, though.   ...

Lingonberries, also known as mountain cranberries, cowberries and partridgeberries, are small red fruits native to Scandinavian countries, areas of Canada and in parts of Alaska.  Recognized for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, these tiny berries grow wild on an evergreen bush called Vaccinium vitis-idaea , a member of the heath family.  At first glance they are very reminiscent of cranberries, and yet, they are less tart, a bit more delicate in aroma and infinitely edible.   I had the pleasure of using wild lingonberries (I used frozen) a few days ago to make an upside down cake for a gathering at a neighbor's house.  The results were well worth the effort of tracking down wild lingonberries.   Click here to buy the exact berries that I used from Northwest Wild Foods.   For the recipe itself, I turned to the trusted experts at King Arthur Flour.  Their Harvest Apple Cranberry Cake looked like the perfect base to use...